We built a new website for an existing client. They launched a new product and they wanted to get started on the right foot.
We started with the copy and tasked one of our skilled copywriters to capture the essence of the product offering. We wanted a good balance between sales copy, search engine copy, and general information.
The copy laid the foundation for the design. We worked closely with the client to capture a look and feel that would be professional, functional, and effective. After a couple iterations we moved on to the other pages. One thing you’ll notice in the design is how we attempted to tell the story of how the device can benefit heavy equipment.
We wanted to launch as quickly as possible and started developing before the entire design was done. Overlapping design and development have some tradeoffs but if speed is a priority, then I highly recommend that strategy.
The development stage went as planned. We engaged a very skilled developer that was a little new to WordPress. We got the benefit of his great experience in PHP and front-end development but we had to help him get up to speed on strategies we can leverage in WordPress. Although it took him a little longer than if we’d engaged a WordPress expert, the entire project came in under budget because we saved a lot in the design phase.
One highlight of our development is the way we separate the data models from the theme by using a custom plugin and custom Gutenberg blocks. I’ve talked about this before but this architecture makes it really easy for future developers to update the themes.
Another highlight is that this client decided to go with a fully custom theme. Themes we build from the ground up are much less likely to need costly updates as WordPress updates the WordPress core. To give you an example, the site that you’re reading this on has had minimal updates for the past 8 years. Sure, it probably does need a design refresh, but at least we haven’t been forced to do an update.
Lastly, this client knows the value of search engine optimization, so we ended the project by doing a full review and optimization to get our performance and seo scores to be very high. We don’t need them to be 100% because some of the factors in the score don’t actually matter that much for getting traffic, but we try to get them as high as we can within a reasonable budget. This work will set the foundation for future SEO content to attract traffic.
